Wednesday, 3 April 2013

Road to nowhere.

K

ROAD TO NOWHERE

Back in mid-January, there was an extraordinary public
meeting at the Holiday Inn, Maidenhead. Addressed by the Tory MP for Bracknell
Dr Phillip Lee, this was his chance to set out his vision for the future of
healthcare in the area. In fact, there was a public consultation going on,
about the future of healthcare provision in the area, but I fear he is going to
be consulted a lot more than the rest of us put together.

“All we need is a bit of courage to go for it” he told the
audience – which is fine if it’s a bungee jump, not so fine for healthcare.

I should explain; Heatherwood and Wexham Park NHS Foundation
Trust, is in fact four hospitals and a walk in centre, which between them all
are bit of a history of the old NHS.

Upton Park Walk-in centre in Slough was once the old Parish
Union Workhouse (please sir, can I have some more) and now deals with minor
troubles only.

Maidenhead has a small out patient hospital dealing with
specialisms. Windsor has an out patients hospital – it does eyes and ears etc.

Heatherwood in Ascot, was a 1920’s TB hospital, set in a wood,
it is made up of separate buildings housing wards joined by roofed walkways
open to the elements at ground level, along which Nurses once wheeled the TB
sufferers, to benefit from fresh, country air and sunlight. It recently lost
it’s A and E to save money.

Wexham Park north of Slough was built in the 1960’s, as a modern efficient, open, airy hospital, to
serve a major town and has an A and E to cover the whole area as well as
dealing with the full range of treatments.

The Doctor and Tory MP wants to sell off all the hospital
sites and replace them with a super hospital near junction 8/9 of the M4
motorway. It would be convenient for his Bracknell constituents but no one
else.

At £600 million he sees this paid for by the sale of the land
the current Hospital’s occupy. Problem is £600 million doesn’t buy you a super
hospital these days. By the time it’s built it will probably be more than the
£1000 million that other similar ventures have cost recently (like the new
London Hospital, recently opened).

The land isn’t worth it, even if houses in Ascot are pretty
exclusive. I would be very surprised if it raised £100 million from the sale of
all five hospitals.

That means only the incredibly expensive Public Finance
Initiative could pay for it, and over 50 years the taxpayer would have to find
more than £3000 million, if the new London Hospital is anything to go by. It’s
annual PFI interest payments are £100 million, not including the running costs
of the Hospital.

Now if the trust was well run…. in fact last year it lost
£6.5million. So where do the annual payments for PFI come from? However that
isn’t the only point.

The argument is that as treatment becomes more specialised,
you need more and better trained Doctors; gathered together in super-sized
hospitals. So, fewer A and E’s but better staffed, providing 24/7 expert care.

The thing is, this area only has one A and E anyway, as does the
next door area covered by Ashford and St. Peter’s. They cut the departments but
they shrunk the staff too.

When next door Ashford A and E shut, the argument was that
between St. Peter’s and Wexham Park, you were never more than about 8 miles
from an A and E. if Wexham shuts….Bracknell is a long way, through the most
clogged up motorways in Britain.